Patrick G. Kruse

Background and Experience: 
Patrick Kruse established Patrick G Kruse PLC as an independent law firm to provide first class legal services to business clients.  In over 20 years of experience as an attorney, Mr. Kruse has established a solid reputation for dedication, hard work, honesty and integrity.  He delivers efficient and practical solutions to his clients at affordable rates.  Mr. Kruse has developed special expertise in the legal issues faced by small businesses, particularly those that are early in their life cycle.  As a former in house attorney and business operator in a start-up, an adviser to a number of small businesses, and having litigated a multitude of cases for small and large companies, Mr. Kruse possesses a unique skill set as a trusted business counselor, strategist and risk manager. He has also developed a special expertise in municipal law and governance, as well as construction law  

Before establishing Patrick G Kruse PLC, Mr. Kruse worked for several years at the Royal Oak, Michigan law firm of Flood Lanctot Connor Stablein PLLC.  While working with Flood law, he maintained a general corporate practice, and, for over two years, among other municipal work, managed all the general municipal legal matters (excluding criminal prosecution) as the City Attorney for the City of Woodhaven, Michigan. Mr. Kruse also worked on general civil litigation matters, trained and supervised less experienced attorneys, and, acting as firm counsel, assisted in the development of controls, policies and procedures necessary to the management of the firm's law practice.

Mr. Kruse also worked for over three years as Vice President and General Counsel for a startup technology business in the renewable energy sector, where he was responsible for all aspects of the company’s legal, contractual and intellectual property affairs, as well as assistance in strategic planning, corporate governance, investor relations, and financing (through several rounds totaling in excess of $9 million).

Mr. Kruse is currently general counsel to Blaze Contracting, Inc., a successful Detroit based heavy civil utility and excavation subcontractor. He manages all the company’s internal and external legal affairs, frequently working as a team with management and outside counsel.  He is also general counsel to smaller companies with whom has developed relationships over many years of practice.

An entrepreneur himself, Mr Kruse is co-founder and co-owner of Detroit National Brewing Company, which is presently launching the historic Altes beer brand back into the Detroit and Southeast Michigan market. He also co-founded and is a member of the Board of Directors of The Tuxedo Project, a Detroit based nonprofit working to build community and literacy in a distressed Detroit neighborhood.

Mr. Kruse is also an experienced law professor.  He teaches a course as an adjunct professor on Advising Entrepreneurs in Business Startups at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law in its cutting edge Law Firm Program. Formerly, he was a full-time tenure track Assistant Professor of Law at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, where he taught Contracts and Civil Procedure for over two years and co-founded the law school’s Service to Soldiers Legal Referral Assistance Program, to provide pro bono legal assistance to active duty military personnel.

Mr. Kruse began his career in private practice in the litigation group at Clark Hill PLC in Detroit, where he worked on a wide variety of business, commercial and general litigation, alternative dispute resolution, trials, and appeals in state and federal courts. Mr. Kruse also served as a judicial clerk for Judge James L. Ryan of the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and for Justice Patricia J. Boyle of the Michigan Supreme Court.

Bar Admissions:
Michigan 1996 -- Admitted in All Michigan State and Federal Courts
United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois 

Education:
University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, 1996
University of Michigan, B.A. English Language and Literature, 1992
University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, 1988

Professional Affiliations:
Oakland County Bar Foundation, Fellow; Oakland County Bar Association, Sustaining Member 

Publications:
Op Ed: If reports check out, State Bar should take action (against Kwame Kilpatrick); Detroit Free Press, February 8, 2008 

A Short Primer on the Standards for Summary Disposition in Michigan; 77 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 467 (2000) 

Note, Is Application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act
nconstitutional? 73 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 391 (1996) 

Casenote, Eminent Domain, Peterman v Department of Natural Resources, 446 Mich 177 (1994); 72 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 669 (1995)